Sharing my thoughts with the world from a Particular Baptist perspective

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IT CAN BE A SMILE

What is it about people that can really gain your interest? I don’t mean people who you just sort of know or a person that you chat to once in a while, yet find something interesting about them – I mean people who really catch your interest and make an impact on your life?

There are some people whom you admire because they have done something great – such as a renowned doctor or someone who has battled the odds and won. There are those that are perceived as great even though they have done little that can be truly regarded as meaningful – perhaps an actor or an actress, a football player or a well known pop singer. But it is not these people that I have in mind, as legitimately admired as they may be.

I am thinking about those people that are personally known to you, those people that have perhaps had a special impact on your life or who have a special place in your heart or life. What is it about these people?

These are the people whom you care so much about and that no matter what happens, what might be said or even might be seen, they have a place in your heart and in your life that cannot be dislodged. They have really gained your interest and you are perhaps intrigued by them to the extent that you just don’t feel you can perhaps be ‘normal’ again if they were no longer in your life.

We all have such people in our lives, even though we may not admit it to ourselves or try to give the impression to onlookers that it is not so. Yet it is so. Sometimes these people become our wife or husband, someone we admire or look up to from afar, or perhaps someone we might try to pursue, just feeling that we need them to be part of our life’s experience, no matter how small a part that might pan out to be.

Sometimes it can be just a smile and we are hooked. There we are talking away, as perhaps we have a dozen times before and then there it is – the smile. There may have been other smiles, but now there is this one. It is a smile you cannot forget.

You look and mark the characteristics of the smile. You see the dimples that form when her joy overcomes her and her delight can no longer be hidden away from view. There is the radiance that beams from her face and the eyes that seem to be able to see into your heart and mind, yet does so with a softness, with a compassion and with a knowledge that everything is going to be OK. Even her hair seems to join in with smile and her skin glows, forming part of this treasured portrait that you now will carry with you wherever you go. She may be physically removed, yet there she is, right there with you in the memory of her smile and in the smile that comes when your thoughts turn to that memory.

Sometimes these treasured ones, they leave this life before it seems time for them to do so. Sometimes they are gone well before the time that perhaps you think they should be gone. Yet this smile still remains and they are always there, with you along the way, as you remember the moment you first became aware of the smile and the place you made for her in your heart and in all that you are – because she is there and she cannot be moved from the place that you have made for her in your heart and in all of your being.

It can be a smile – that which begins it all. Something perhaps so small, so insignificant overall, but yet overwhelming for the impact and the pathway on which it sets your feet to tread. It is a pathway you walk, drawn on from such a simple beginning to an adventure of revelation and discovery as even more cherished scenes and experiences are charted along the way and the memories of a person are chronicled in the annals of this one not to be forgotten but always remembered.

There are always hooks on which you can hang the canvas of an experience you shared and of which you always wish to recall. A smell or a scene will draw from the mind a precious time or even a feature of the one you hold dear. There will be a smile, a simple smile that will form on your face that none other knows why – yet you know that your dear one is still there, even in the memories of times you held dear.

There will be times and happenings, all special for sure, yet just knowing her will be enough. What a joy it can be, just to have known and to feel the smile of that you held dear. It can be even a smile, though there be even so much more than that too.